There are various devices known in the prior art concerning floor tiles and planks. One or more prior art techniques concerning floor planks are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,195,107 to Timm, U.S. Pat. No. 4,180,615 to Bettoli, U.S. Pat. No. 4,348,477 to Miller, U.S. Pat. No. 4,990,188 to Micek, U.S. Pat. No. 4,439,480 to Sachs, and U.S. Published Patent Application no. US 2006/0156663 to Chen-chi Mao, which are incorporated by reference herein.
A Chinese company named “Huizhou Naibao Plastics Products Co., Ltd.” has a product and/or method related to floor planks and/or tiles and has a Chinese patent application no. 200920062276.7, filed on Aug. 11, 2009. “GTP International” which is a customer of “Huizhou Naibao Plastics Products Col, Ltd.” is selling a product related to this Chinese Patent, in the United States. “GTP International” has a U.S. registered trademark for “Free-Fit” related to selling this product.
Known polyvinyl chloride (PVC) floor planks and tiles (so-called vinyl floor in U.S., or PVC floor in Europe, Australia and some other Asian and African countries) employ specialized adhesives (such as “pressure sensitive” adhesives) for affixing the floor planks or tiles to a subfloor, subfloor surface, or underlayment. Two major methods are used for applying adhesives for so called PVC or vinyl floors. In the first method, adhesive is manually applied onto the surface of subflooring or underlayment, and then the vinyl floor is manually applied to the adhesive-coated surface of subflooring or underlayment. In the second method an adhesive-backed vinyl floor plank or tile is provided, in which the adhesive is already applied over the back of vinyl floor or floor plank or tile, without the need of preparing an adhesive-coated surface on top of the subflooring or underlayment. However, typically for the second method, a flooring primer may need to be applied on top of the surface of the subflooring or underlayment, depending on the condition of the subfloor or underlayment. The second known method helps to provide a substantial saving in labor and time by simply allowing removal of a backing, such as a piece of paper or plastic film coated with releasing substance such as polyurethane, silicone, or acrylic, to expose a protected adhesive material on the back of a floor plank or tile.
However, the two aforementioned known methods of floor plank or tile installation do not provide satisfactory performance due to some significant problems. Firstly, for either method, the job of planning installation of a new floor, including many floor planks or tiles, can be confusing. It may be difficult to properly position and balance the overall vinyl floor (comprised of many floor planks or tiles) in a room. Before laying the floor planks or tiles down, measuring and centering the underlayment may be formidable. Any mistake made at a beginning stage may require removal, replacement, repair, or even entire re-installation of all of the floor planks or tiles.
Secondly, for a renewal or replacement installation, i.e. for a replacement of an existing vinyl floor with a new vinyl floor, a complete cycle for the renewal or replacement installation can be relatively long because among other reasons, removal and replacement are somewhat challenging. Sometimes, the removability of a fully adhered vinyl floor (including a plurality of floor planks or tiles) comes up with great difficulty. Furthermore, repair can be arduous, too. Repair usually involves removing existing or damaged vinyl floor planks or tiles or even an entire floor comprised of many floor planks or tiles. Repair may also involve scraping and patching the subflooring, and remedying, such as leveling and repairing, the underlayment, and re-spreading adhesive on top of the repaired or remedied subflooring.
Thirdly, diverse varieties of subflooring and underlayment with distinct qualities and conditions need to be cautiously evaluated during the preparation of installation of a vinyl flooring, including contents of moisture, smoothness of surface, leveling of ground, cleanness of surface, rating of alkali and other factors. Most of pre-installation tests can exclusively be accomplished by professional contract installers, manufacturers or laboratories.
Fourthly, the particular subflooring or underlayment onto which the vinyl floor planks or tiles must be laid may be comprised of any one of a wide variety of materials such as concrete, gypsum, plywood, and existing floorings such as vinyl, ceramic, hardwood, and laminate. Each one of these different subflooring or underlayment materials typically has different features and properties, and the adhesive applied to the subflooring must take into account these different features and properties. For example, a different adhesive may need to be applied to a concrete subflooring versus a plywood subflooring, or the adhesive may need to be applied in a different manner depending on the subflooring material
Fifthly, the brands, qualities and types of adhesive, particularly the contents, ingredients and physical properties, may influence or even impact the performance of installation of PVC or vinyl floor planks or tiles. Therefore, installers, whoever are professional contractors or amateur consumers need to spend additional time to research and study different types of adhesives, or may also need technical support from manufacturers, manufacturer's representatives or manufacturer's distributors.
Sixthly, some types of adhesive may fail to maintain adequate cohesion strength because of the problem of plasticizer migration into adhesive. Plasticizer typically exists in the base layer of vinyl floors, or may exist in some resilient type of underlayment or subflooring. Storage conditions and storage period of adhesives may also impact how the adhesives adhere to a surface.
Seventhly, excessive use of adhesives may cause “ooze”, which means adhesive coming out from seams or joints between floor tiles or planks. This “ooze” causes an undesirable visual appearance on the flooring and/or in the waste of labor and time to get rid of and clean up.
Eighthly, deficit or unevenness of spreading adhesive may cause installation failure due to loose pieces from subflooring or underlayment.
In addition to the difficulties of implementing installation satisfactorily, as mentioned above, another disadvantage is that the application of adhesive produces essentially permanent structures that are difficult to alter, repair or remove once a vinyl floor, including a plurality of vinyl planks or tiles, has been installed. There are various hardware tools and chemicals for removing adhesive-installed vinyl floors, however, it is very difficult, if not impossible to completely eliminate adhesive residue from a subflooring or underlayment, or to completely restore a subflooring to an original intact condition.
Traditionally, adhesive is absolutely required to achieve the installation of vinyl floor. However, before, during and after the use of adhesive all may have inconveniences, concerns and problems to both household amateur consumers and professional contract installers.